Lubbock , Basil , 1876-1944 , historian

Basil Lubbock (1876-1944) was educated at Eton and in 1897 went to Canada and on to the KLONDYKE in the second year of the gold rush. He shipped home in 1899 from the West Coast round the Horn as an ordinary seaman on the four-masted barque ROYALSHIRE, a voyage recorded in his Round the Horn Before the Mast (London, 1902). After the First World War Lubbock devoted himself to recording the history of sailing ships between 1850 and 1930 in a series of over fifteen volumes, most of which are still in print as standard reference works. These include The China Clippers (1914), The Colonial Clippers (1921), The Blackwall Frigates (1922), The Last of the Windjammers (2 vols, 1927-8) and his last book The Arctic Whalers (1937).